


Halo At Your Head

by poes



Series: N7 Month [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen, M/M, N7 Month 2016, Schrödinger's Character, it's John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 14:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8450170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poes/pseuds/poes
Summary: Day One of N7 Month. Prompt: Destroy Ending--He wonders, privately, if the cybernetic enhancements in his commander could have somehow softened his fall. If, somewhere here, Shepard is unconscious but alive, waiting for him. Waiting for his major to come and pull him from the grave. That, once again, where Shepard should be dead, he is waking up alone, disoriented. This time, Kaidan will be there.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the N7 month challenge, day one! I'm a sucker for the destroy ending... and somehow I made this sad.
> 
> I'm going to try really hard to keep these short and sweet, but knowing me, this will be a one time thing.
> 
> Title from Sufjan Stevens' "Fourth of July".
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Sometimes, when you look over at the mess, you think that maybe you'll never find anything. You'll never find a body, you'll never find the way out. It'll always be this. Digging, searching, looking for anything besides more destruction and finding only another slab of stone on what was once the Citadel.

The whole thing is obliterated. Every piece Kaidan lifts with his hands is a testament to that. It's heavy and solid under his palms, like he's pushing up a coffin lid. Every moment, he fears two things:

One, that he will find nothing underneath, like he has so many times before now. He will only find the dull emptiness of disappointment, but the kind of disappointment that grits its teeth around your throat and murmurs it could be worse. He will not be crushed, but he will find no relief, the Sisyphus of the savior of the galaxy. He pushes the stone up and away from the ground, and hopes that maybe this will be the time that he succeeds, only to watch it all roll away from his hands. He is helpless, but he cannot stop; this is his punishment for loving.

Two, that he will find Shepard.

He doesn't know which scares him more. He doesn't know if seeing the corpse of Shepard will bring him peace or bring him devastation. He doesn't let himself think of the potential that he will find Shepard alive; he can't let himself think that, not even a little bit, because if he has even a sliver of hope, he knows he's going to cling to it.

But god. It's hard not to hope.

It's hard not to want to push over a hunk of metal and find Shepard there, blinking weary eyes and with that stupid, overconfident smile on his face as he laughs at Kaidan for worrying. _Did you really think I would let a couple reapers take me down?_ laughs the Shepard in Kaidan's imagination, and he feels a squeeze low in his stomach.

 _Dammit._ This is exactly what he hadn't wanted. Kaidan huffs softly and wipes the sweat off his of his forehead, determinedly blanking his thoughts as best he can. He stretches and pushes his hands into the small of his back, feeling his spine creak tiredly before popping. In the distance, he can see Vega digging as well, his arms flexing and covered in the soft black grime of the dust that has settled over everything. Beside him, Garrus is there, still wearing his armor and rifle as he and Vega heave together and shove a large slab of metal up and away. Kaidan wonders if the turian has showered; he hasn't, himself, in the two days they've all been digging.

Besides the crew themselves, several other people, soldiers and civilians alike, are littered here and there, working to free anyone who might've gotten trapped underneath the rubble. Shepard, of course, especially.

It's like walking into a house that's been abandoned for years; the same sense of foreboding, the quiet assurance that they shouldn't be here, that they're stirring up things that they can't change. Old ghosts.

Kaidan looks up and tries to remember how high up Shepard had been. He wonders, privately, if the cybernetic enhancements in his commander could have somehow softened his fall. If, somewhere here, Shepard is unconscious but alive, waiting for him. Waiting for his major to come and pull him from the grave. That, once again, where Shepard should be dead, he is waking up alone, without him.

This time, Kaidan will be there.

He can't help it. He _has_ to hope. It's a curse he wishes he could let go of. Shepard had admired it about him. 

_Shepard isn't here_. 

Kaidan feels heat sting his eyes and grits his teeth, blanking his mind again. Because it'd been so helpful before.

He bends back down and starts digging again, wedging his fingers under another piece of metal and pulling as hard as he can. His muscles are tired and protest with the movement, but Kaidan could dig for days if he had to. If his body fails him, he can switch to his biotics for a while. When that fails, he'll go back to manual labor.

Several times, people have come over to ask him if he wanted to take a break, or to switch out for the evening, but as the day progressed, this became less and less frequent. People must be realizing who he is; a glance out of the corner of his vision sometimes catches people looking at him with pitying expressions and hooded eyes, talking quietly where they think he can't see them. They know what Kaidan is trying his hardest to accept. Some of them want him to stop for his own health, but if someone else finds Shepard and he isn't there, he would never forgive himself.

No. It has to be him. He has to be the one to help Shepard to his feet... or the one to pick up his body and carry it out of here.

He swallows, tugging quietly at more stones. 

Above him, what remains of the Citadel is dark and loud. People have been trying to repair it ever since they got here; the Normandy is landed somewhere in the distance, not in a docking bay but in the center of a park. Some places of the Citadel have lighting again, but water is something people have to go out and get from stations. Food, likewise, if you didn't have any if your home for yourself. The bodies found on the Citadel alone so far are in the hundred-thousands, last time Kaidan had heard, but no one has really been able to get anything definite. If he's being honest, he can't find it in himself to care that much. There's only one body that matters to him.

Maybe that makes him horrible. He can’t really care about that either.

The ride here from the Normandy had been deathly quiet. Garrus was by his side for the most part, silently lending him a shoulder to lean on. Kaidan's injuries had been treated by a solemn Liara, her hands shaking as she pulled the shrapnel from his leg. The damage there wasn't ever going to really be gone, not without all the tools they would need and the necessary staff there to make sure it was adjusted properly. He might limp a little for the rest of his life, especially because _like hell_ is he going to stay off it when he could be out here, digging, instead. Kaidan somehow believes he won't really care that much.

They'd all stared at the wall of names of the people they'd lost. Shepard's nameplate was heavy and solid in his hands, like the marble he's digging through now; it'd been tucked away in his quarters. A just-in-case that they all had made when the wall had been first introduced. Kaidan thinks of his own nameplate, in the bedside table beside Shepard's bed. On Shepard's side, right beside the commander's own.

Kaidan had stared down at them, side by side, slightly dusty. He remembers making them together. Shepard had been all easy smiles and deft hands; Kaidan couldn't understand how he could be so unconcerned about the possibility of his own death. How this didn't weigh on him.

When asked, Shepard's eyes had darkened just a little, and he'd smoothed his thumb over the nameplate in his hands. Commander Shepard.

"It's not my death I'm concerned about," he'd replied, simply, like that was all the thought he'd put into it.

Everyone was expecting him to put it on the wall.

He hadn't. He couldn't. It's back in Shepard's quarters, now, still sitting beside Kaidan's plate in the desk drawer Shepard had whipped open so many times in frantic, laughing moments where he'd pushed Kaidan on the bed and went digging for things there. How many times had Shepard's fingers carelessly skirted over this, the symbol of their deaths, in the pursuit of more time together? How many times had he looked at these when Kaidan hadn't been looking and worried about him?

It makes Kaidan kind of sick. How could he put this up on the wall when he wasn't sure? How could he let Shepard go when Shepard had never let him go? When Shepard had wanted him back, taken him back, even after all his mistakes?

This time... this time, if Shepard is dead... Kaidan has to be sure. He needs to know for _sure_.

The frustration carries him to continue. Maybe a little bit the urge to prove people wrong, too, if he's being honest. If he can just... trick himself into believing he'll find Shepard alive... well. _I always was the optimist of the group, wasn't I?_

His eyes sting more, and this time Kaidan doesn't try to stop himself from letting it happen. He's tired. If anyone calls him out on it, he'll blast them across the station.

Off to his left, a stone falls off a pile from seemingly nowhere. There's a shift.

Kaidan feels his entire being move without him meaning it to. 

It's a split-second blur of gray steel and fake blue sky, and Kaidan is throwing rocks without meaning to, his muscles renewed. He pulls and shoves and cuts his palms on the metal, lashes fluttering as hope leaps in his chest. Please. _Please._

He digs, and digs, and digs. It can't have been nothing. The movement. He'd seen it. _I did_. His biceps twist as he pushes a hunk of glossy foundation away. His jaw aches from his clenched teeth.

25 minutes later Kaidan Alenko touches the icy floor of the Citadel and remains there, on his hands and knees. The air is chilled; space's lack of heat cannot be shut out by the heating systems anymore, not until they've been repaired.

He is cold, and he is alone.

Tears spike at his eyes. He lets them, his head drooping and shoulders crumbling under the weight of everything. Kaidan hasn't cried since he was 17. _At least not while I was sober._ It's not that he never had reason to, of course, but...

It felt like everything came down to this moment.

He can't give up. Not until he finds the body. He can't... he can't let himself wonder. He can't live with the idea of laying in bed and _wondering_ if Shepard is still out there somewhere.

Maybe he's not even on the Citadel. Maybe he was blasted into space with the rest of the debris, and maybe there was no chance in a million years that Kaidan would ever find him. _Maybe._ Maybe Kaidan would never see his face again.

 _Of course,_ the bitter voice in his head reminds him, _that may be an option even if he's still on the space station._

But Kaidan is going to search every inch of this place until he doesn't have to wonder anymore. He won't stop. He _won't_. 

_I’ll find you._

Kaidan sniffs once, twice, and drags the back of his hand over his eyes. Determination slithers back into his veins like a basilisk. It's cold, and deadly, and could turn him to stone if he didn't hold it under his hand like the animal it was.

With a final scrub over his face, he pushes back onto his feet and looks over at Vega and Garrus again.

They are both determinedly not looking in his direction, but are still, silent. They know.

Kaidan swallows and starts walking towards them, clenching and unclenching his hands. He’ll be better if he can be mindless with his friends while they work. He was never the best at being alone.

Behind him, another rock tumbles down. Kaidan whips his head around, eyes widening and freezing in place. This can't be his imagination. What... what is happening?

He turns fully back around and shakes his head, squinting at the little piece of stone. _Am I seeing what I want to see? Is–_

The wind blows. Beside it, another rock twitches and turns over onto its other side. Kaidan thinks he sees a weak blue sputter of energy twist around it for a split second before it fades out.

Biotics. It. It _had_ to be biotics.

Kaidan is upon the rock before he can stop himself, picking it up and pulling it to his chest. He looks around, and when his voice comes out, it's louder than he means for it to be. He can’t remember the last time he spoke. “Shepard? Shepard!”

There is nothing.

For a moment.

And then Vega and Garrus are beside him, their own eyes wide and breathing hard.

“Kaidan?” says Vega, bending down and looking around as if trying to see something. “Did you see– what? Where is he?”

Kaidan holds up the rock. “He... _something_ moved this.”

The pair stare at him, then exchange a glance. “L2…”

Kaidan's jaw works. “I know. I saw it. It was biotics. I think he's trapped... somewhere under here.”

Vega looks like he’s about to say something, his brows twisting up in a way that screams sad skepticism, but Garrus steps in before he can. His mandibles are held close to his face; the blue markings across his nose and cheeks are smeared and faded, like the last time they were put on it'd been half-hearted, and now it was a few days later.

Garrus looks old. Kaidan sympathizes.

“Okay. Where did it fall?”

He could very easily take it as condescending or piteous. He would, too, if he didn't look up to snap in response and see the look in Garrus' eyes. The glimmer of something unsteady and war-worn makes the snarl in Kaidan soften. He could be angry, but if there's anyone else that would want Shepard to be alive anywhere close to how much he wanted it, it'd be Garrus.

Kaidan swallows and turns to the pile of rubble he'd just been staring at. “It moved here.”

The three of them spread out, moving slowly among the destruction with no words and icy eyes. Kaidan can tell Vega is just humoring him, but he's grateful anyway.

These are three men who loved Commander Shepard in very different, but very real, ways. Kaidan can appreciate that they're all dealing with this differently. Maybe Vega knows better than to hope. It's surprising that Garrus is even thinking about it.

Maybe they all just need him.

They move rocks around for a good ten minutes. Kaidan pushes and uses his biotics alike, feeling a migraine pounding in the back of his head. Blessedly, it doesn't push itself forward just yet, but Kaidan is terrified that any minute he will become incapable of even standing up straight, much less searching for a body.

A body. The words sit in his mouth like ash.

He moves forward and picks up a slab of silvery material, ripping past a fallen piece of fabric. It parts easily under his hands, and he thinks of every moment he pushed open Shepard's clothing to kiss his throat, and his chest, and the way Shepard laughed when his eyelashes brushed over his skin.

God. _God._ He can't lose him. He has to be here. He _has_ –

“Kaidan,” comes Garrus' voice, soft, yet impossibly loud over the feet between them.

Kaidan turns.

Garrus' face is implacable as he slowly drops the heavy stone to the side. His eyes are the view outside the Normandy; vast and dark and unreadable. Kaidan feels his heart drop at the way Garrus' mandibles shiver against his mouth. Behind him, Vega lets out a small, heartbreaking gasp.

“I found him.”


End file.
